Review of Villa Maydou, Luang Prabang

We booked Villa Maydou based on the reviews on Tripadvisor and it’s location.

Location of Villa Maydou, Luang Prabang

Villa Maydou is located conveniently in the middle on the town. Night market, National museum and other temples are at walking distance, and there are many restaurants close by. One of the reasons we selected it was because it is close to the only Indian restaurants in Luang Prabang – Nisha restaurant and Chennai restaurant. While we like trying local cuisine, finding variety in local vegetarian food is not always possible and it’s good to have Indian restaurants around. There is a small temple (Vat Mauna) right next to Villa Maydou and you can see alms ceremony standing right outside the hotel. Though not at the scale you can see it near Xiang Thong, it’s more authentic than the main one which is full of tourists.

Booking and Tariff

The tariff on OTAs and hotel website are usually same. I called up the hotel once before booking the room because I wanted clarity on the tariff if our kiddo shared the bed with us. We were asked to pay 15 USD per day for his breakfast if we did not need extra bed; which was fine with us. We booked a heritage double room through their website directly. Link to hotel website: villamaydou.com

Rooms

We had booked heritage double room. The room came with a queen bed, attached bathroom with bathtub, mini bar, hair dryer & safe. The wooden flooring was a nice touch. However, the bed was small and we requested for a change.

We were then moved to one of the traditional rooms which had King bed. It also had a TV (not that we even noticed that the TV was missing in previous room), writing desk, fan, bathrobes, slippers etc. This room also had a private sit out and was right next to the swimming pool.

The only thing missing was a kettle, which would have helped us greatly because our kid had cough and cold through the trip. The rooms are comfortable and well kept. The storage area and lights could be little better but otherwise no complains on the room front.

Amenities

Villa Maydou has a swimming pool and a spa inside. The pool is quite deep and there is no kiddo pool, so we never got inside. Cycles are also available for free. It’s one of the best way to explore the city. Most of their cycles come with a child seat at the back, and foot rest for the kids.

The hotel also organizes various tours and does booking for activities. There is no mark-up for the activities which is good. They also book tuk-tuk / mini-van or cars at reasonable rate, though little higher than what you can bargain outside. But the drivers are good and we didn’t mind paying slightly premium rate. To give an idea, tuk-tuk to airport was 6 USD, pickup from airport in a private van was 10 USD, Tad Sae falls trip costed 22 USD and tuk-tuk to Kuang Si falls was 25 USD.

Restaurant

Hotel has a restaurant which serves local and French dishes. It had one or two veg dishes, but they can customize a few dishes to make vegetarian. Breakfast was complimentary with the room, but was the same almost everyday. Except for the weekend when they had buffet breakfast; it was served on-order.

You can check the restaurant menu on this link: Restaurant menu at Villa Maydou, Luang Prabang, Laos I would have been happier if there was some more variety for breakfast.

Staff

The hotel staff is very responsive: over phone, email or in person. Though like others in Laos they struggle with English, they try their best to understand and help the guests. I communicated with them a lot over email about hotel pick-up, vegetarian food and for booking activities before we landed in Laos. We arrived Luang Prabang in the evening around 6pm and the day staff had logged out by the time we checked into the hotel. They ensured our check in was smooth and we were comfortable. I have a special word of thanks for Saita, the front desk manager who is very responsive to the guests’ requests. Points that stood out to me:

• The heritage room we booked came with a queen bed, which was small for us with the kiddo. Luckily for us, their biggest room was available in the week we were there and Saita upgraded us to that room for free.
• She also ensured that our small requests like keeping the water bottles outside the fridge etc were met. Kiddo had fever one evening and we had to postpone the Living Land farm activity scheduled for next day, which was again promptly done by Saita and her team.
• We were in Laos for our son’s birthday and the staff ensured the room was decorated with some balloons and towel art.
• The staff in the restaurant was always accommodating to our requests of hot water or for microwaving some ready to eat stuff that we carried from India.

I would highly recommend this hotel for their friendly and smiling staff and outstanding service. Overall, we found Villa Maydou as a very good choice. I will definitely recommend it to someone looking for a cozy, convenient and friendly place in Luang prabang.